SALE TAX ON FOOD PARCELS

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25161, 17 April 1947, Page 3

SALE TAX ON FOOD PARCELS

REPLY TO REQUEST FOR REMISSION

There is only one way in which goods packed in food parcels for overseas can be sold free of sales tax. This information was given by Mr T. H. McCombs, M.P., for the Minister of Customs (Mr W. Nash), to the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation in a letter received by the council of the Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association at its meeting last evening. The federation had asked for exemption from sales tax on taxable goods packed in food parcels. Mr McCombs explained that in the case of parcels mad? up by a licensed wholesaler and actually packed and posted by him tax on the prices of taxable goods included could be excluded, and the wholesaler could make an appropriate deduction under the heading “goods exported” in his monthly sales tax return. Many of the goods commonly packed in food parcels were in any case exempt from sales tax. These included milk or cream (powdered, condensed, or preserved), butter, cheese, animal fats, dried or dehydrated fruits, and puddings. Members of the Manufacturers’ Federation could obtain the full benefit of tax remission by using existing parcel dispatch schemes operated through licensed wholesalers or through a merchant using the customs drawback procedure, Which required supervision of the packing and dispatch of goods by the Customs Department and evidence of the amount of tax paid.

Mr McCombs added that the federation’s representations regarding company taxation remission on parcel subsidies were being considered by the Acting-Minister of Finance (Mr A. H. Nordmeyer).